Bring It On!

New Poll Shows Americans Growing Brains

February 27th, 2007 | by Jersey McJones |

From MSNBC…

With Congress preparing for renewed debate over President Bush’s Iraq policies, a majority of Americans now support setting a deadline for withdrawing U.S. forces from the war-torn nation and support putting new conditions on the military that could limit the number of personnel available for duty there, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

That’s good news. The GOP strategy, straight from the Vietnam play-book, to blame the Democrats for the failure of the war, should the Dems cut or redirect spending for the war, may not be as viable as they’d hoped.

Opposition to Bush’s plan to send an additional 21,500 troops to Iraq remained strong. Two in three Americans registered their disapproval, with 56 percent saying they strongly object. The House recently passed a nonbinding resolution opposing the new deployments, but Republicans have blocked consideration of such a measure in the Senate.

So, it looks like escalation, as nominal and rhetorical as it is, isn’t going to play either…

Senate Democrats, led by Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl M. Levin (Mich.) and Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph R. Biden Jr. (Del.), are preparing another resolution that would have the effect of taking away the authority Bush was granted in 2002 to go to war. The measure would seek to have virtually all combat forces withdrawn from Iraq by the end of March 2008.

Now, of course, we have to see if this will even make it past the GOP filibusters, but if these polls continue to show less and less approval of Bush’s war, they may have to finally back down.

The Post-ABC poll found that 53 percent of Americans favored setting a deadline for troop withdrawals.

Most of them would like it to be a year or more from now. They realize, I would imagine, that leaving too soon could be extremely dangerous to all involved… or do they…

Growing numbers of Americans also favored withdrawing U.S. forces even if civil order in Iraq has not been restored. The poll found that 42 percent favored keeping troops there until order is reestablished, while 56 percent said the troops should be redeployed to avoid further U.S. casualties, even if the sectarian violence is continuing.

Now, there’s a reason for this seemingly apathetic and irresponsible position…

Seventy percent placed primary blame for failing to control the violence in Iraq on the Iraqi government, while just 18 percent said the United States is more at fault.

So, while we may be waking up, somewhat, to the failure of Bush’s war, most of us are still arrogant and stupid enough to blame the Iraqi government, that we indirectly and directly created, for the mess that we made. That sort of arrogance is usually a sign of shame and insecurity - and sure enough, Bush’s war has gievn us nothing but shame and insecurity.

Bush also received negative marks on the campaign against terrorism (52 percent disapproved) and on his handling of the economy (55 percent disapproved).

Because, as we all know, we did NOT bring the war to the enemy, but rather we brought it to an innocent bystander, creating perhaps far more terrorists than were around before. And, we can not just stay over there forever, as that will only create even more terrorists. So, Bush’s war in Iraq not only negated, but defeated his war on terrorism.

By wide margins, Americans said they trust Democrats in Congress more than Bush to deal with Iraq, health care, the budget, the economy and terrorism. The Democrats’ advantage on health care was 37 percentage points, on the budget 27 points, on Iraq and the economy 20 points and on terrorism 13 points.

Overall, however, 41 percent said they approved of the way Congress is doing its job, while 54 percent disapproved.

It seems paradoxical, but it’s not. Most Americans don’t even understand what the congress does.

The poll also registered a new low on the question of whether the Iraq war was worth fighting. Thirty-four percent responded that it was, while 64 percent said it was not — 51 percent strongly. On this question, 51 percent of military veterans and 53 percent of veteran households said they strongly believe that the war was not worth fighting.

And when the vets, who usually support war-time presidents no matter what, as a matter of understandable cognative dissonance, turn on Bush - it’s finally coming to an end.

JMJ